Part 2: Shut up and Listen; or you know... listen

Here is part 2 of my response, this time on the concept of Shut up and Listen. I would like to do a written transcript of the videos. I will do my best to post the transcript soon. If you would like to help with that, please let me know.

Hispanic, Atheist, American, Me

Women in Secularism 2 was an amazing event, and one whose various liveblogs I encourage people to read.  The talks and panels were fantastic, despite being bookended by obnoxiously wrongheaded attacks on the conference’s very premise.  Short review: would do again.  And not just because fellow attendees and bloggers Kate Donovan, Jason Thibeault, Miri Mogilevsky, PZ Myers, and Ashley Miller kept the atmosphere awesome throughout.

Some things that were said, in particular by CFI-Transnational Director for Outreach Debbie Goddard, got me thinking.  It’s no secret these days that organized atheism’s roots in predominantly white, male, well-educated circles has often made it tone-deaf to the different experiences, priorities, and demands of people outside those groups.  It’s also no secret that some of these “outsiders” have far more to gain from abandoning religion than Western atheism’s white, male, well-educated old guard ever did or hopefully ever will.

Which brings me to the Sarlaac pit of contradictions that is being a Hispanic-American atheist.

Privilege

As part one of my response to the inappropriate comments about privilege and shut up and listen in the opening ceremonies at WiS, I made a video about what privilege means.

 

WiS: Gender Equality in the Secular movement

Greta Christina is awesome. That is all.

What does success in gender equality look like:

Stephanie Zvan: It means more than just numbers. We will be able to have a conference about our issues without someone telling us not to take it too far. We will have equality when we are allowed to be as cranky as the men. When we don't have to work to be so much more exceptional and are more inclusive about who we consider leaders.

Ophelia Benson: To be able to have a conference like this and have an official hashtag without having it filled up with garbage by people who hate the con and everything it stands for. Not having to still be arguing about it and being able to take it for granted. To expects conferences to look like this one. Covering the same subjects without having it be called Women in something because it belonged there. Having gender issues be central to the movement, or having it disappear as a subject because it is actually no longer needed.

Elisabeth Cornwell: Standing up when we need to stand up, and listening when we need to listen. [I am a little concerned when you need to start off your talk by telling people that your area of study is not a pseudo-science. Don't tell me, show me. Psychology is a science, but evolutionary psychology seems to struggle with burden of proof and understanding of evolution]

Debbie Goddard: It is hard to know what gender and racial equality look like when it doesn't exist anywhere. We have no example. We should address the challenges that are faced by different demographics.

If anyone in the movement didn't support Gay marriage, we would shun them.

It's not necessarily by numbers but about attitude. Let's not have conferences where there are no women speakers, lets have women's opinions taken seriously.

Benson thinks numbers are a sign. There are all sorts of little signs that there are problems that are often not seen and so the numbers can be indicators that something is off. If there is a marked difference in representation, we need to ask why.

11:26 am - If you think that having women speakers means not having the best speakers, means you should re-evaluate your criteria. We join groups because we feel welcome and some connection with the people. This is why race, gender, and other minority representation matters because it provides that connection to people to join the movement.

INTERSECTIONALITY FTW!

I have to admit being really excited about the fact that a discussion of gender equality included the introduction to race equality, trans equality, gay equality, etc. etc. There is also a question about whether we are too US centric.

Benson: Bring the attention of privileged attention of Americans to international issues like the struggle in Syria.

Zvan: We can't wrap our heads around the idea that we might have choice in our clothing, but there are places in the world where choice in clothes could be wear this or die, which is not a choice. If we want to talk about choice we need to do so by demanding choice in those places.

What have we already accomplished? Have we gotten better? What have we been doing right?

Cornwell: It is more ok for men to be atheists. It is rare to meet atheist women who aren't married to religious men. Rationality is considered a male trait and rational women are criticized for being rational and direct. Was discouraged from science.

Benson: Trying not to call it a "Guy thing". Atheism is considered a man thing because it is a fight with god and you don't want to send a woman to fight with the ultimate man.

Svan: When you point out that there are situations where women are not treated the same as men and people deny it, but things get better anyway because you pointed it out. The hate is not the result of complaining, it is just the reaction. We are making a difference and are slowly chipping away at the inequality.

Cornwell: Having had Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the four horsemen DVD would have helped.

Goddard: We used to draw mostly from bestselling authors, scientists, philosophers, etc.  Neil deGrasse Tyson was the seventh person of color to get a Ph.D. in astrophysics, so an astrophysics conference would of necessity be unbalanced.  So, lots of smaller successful conferences get more educators, organizers, activists, bloggers, despite the derision that bloggers get, the movement shifts and becomes more balanced.  These latter fields have a better balance already.  We can fix this mess by recognizing the ways that people from less unbalanced areas of expertise can contribute things of value.  Perhaps eventually these other fields will catch up?

Going out of our way to be more inclusive--affirmative action?  Does that work?  Is it a "quota" that "lowers our standards"?

Zvan: Plug for a convention in Minneapolis that was, by accident, almost all women speakers.  Many women speakers are relatively new, or hadn't been heard of by important organizing types.

Benson: Fame is a self-fulfilling system so we have to look to feature new people. Inviting people who don't fit into the white, middle class, male slot works because it puts their name out there for consideration with future conferences.

Cornwell: male speakers are considered crowd drawers in a way women aren't. Says data shows that women are less willing to ask the questions and are less willing to give talks.

Goddard: Yes it works! We are a movement. We need to grow, and to do that we should think about groups and who to reach out to. "@Lurien "It doesn't affect me, ergo mission drift." Paraphrasing @DebGod #wiscfi"

"What are the consequences of not having inclusiveness"

Zvan: Some of us are living those consequences now. People who say "Women can't think" "Person x just agreed with you because you are sleeping with them" "Did you come here with your boyfriend" Guys don't always see these things even when they are right in front of them. It can feel lonely in secular conventions for a woman. A place like this [#wiscfi] lets us take more risks because we know it is safe to do so here.

Benson: When there are more of us, we piss more people off. The visibility also creates more reaction. Success means having to navigate more shit.

Cornwell: If we don't have equality we lose.

Goddard: A defence of the idea of Shut up and Listen [so much win in everything she is saying. Like Holy Crap!]

WiS: Sexism and Religion

Great introduction for Katha Pollitt

Eureka moment when looking at sunset and realizing my partner thinks this was put here by god, by I know it is not true.

Can religion be separated from the misogyny that is entwined with its practices.
Cousin Wendy and Cousin Penny say no. Danielle Mendlesen said: Not until God stops being the father

More than men, women need to practice monogamy in this life, and only makes it into heaven if called there by her huband who calls her by her secret name. She will be perpetually pregnant in the afterlife so that she can populate her husband's planet.

In Islam, men get a bevy of women and no one knows what women get.

Jesus said that in the afterlife there would be no marriage and no pregnancy.

Wherever a distinction in sex is made, the benefit is always for men. All the authors are men. There are no female prophets, although we get some female religious leaders or saints, men are still given more privileges. To find women centric religions, you have to go to prehistory. Goddesses in polytheistic religions are also less revered than Gods.

There is always a deep concern with controlling women's sexuality.

Misogyny is baked into religion. One of the main purposes of religion is the subjugation of women. The trend towards more friendliness to women, is the result of a societal shift.

Prior to this "separate but equal" nonsense about complementarity, religions simply came out and said that women were inferior and that women's sexuality needed to be controlled and regulated and channelled.  Such is the Jewish ritual bath for menstruation.

A columnist almost lost his job for suggesting that someone uncomfortable with the Orthodox Jewish taboo about touching women, via handshakes for female realtors.  Orthodox Jews have a way of rephrasing this sexist taboo as being "egalitarian" or about "modesty and respect."  There's something like this related to the hijab and other symbols of Muslim female identity.  The assertion is that it's not a portable sexist covering, but simply a symbol of identity, despite its history.  So, some well-meaning leftists suggest wearing the hijab as a statement of solidarity with oppressed Muslims.  Katha suggested that MEN try this; her audience at the time did not receive it well, though the audience here applauded.

So, lately, Paul's injunction about women being silent in church suddenly doesn't ACTUALLY mean that women should be silent in church, after a tortured exegesis.

Some people, likewise, insist that everything objectionable about the Koran is particular to Muhammad's time, and everything they like is divine revelation from Allah to Muhammad.  Of course, there remains no good answer for how such divinely inspired or revealed words could change so dramatically in meaning from one decade to the next.  And what separates the metaphors and historical novelties from the divine commands?  God is supposed to be well beyond such provincial limitations, yet the whole thing speaks exactly like the societies in which his books were written.  Feminist theologians have their work cut out for them, forced to justify why the objectionable parts can be carved out and discarded without undermining the entire structure.

Christians today are hungry for a version of Christianity where the sexist, patriarchal parts are an inaccuracy introduced after the fact to prop up an oppressive society, because that is what our society believes and the conflict is unsettling.  Some places vary the genders of various characters, with hilarious results.  The obsession with virginity and sexual self-denial remains; hostility to sex was part of Christianity from the start and a contrast to Roman culture.

It looks like goalpost shifting, and perhaps it is.  But it can be described another way: religion changes when society changes, or 50 years later.  If religion is a set of fixed rules and texts and traditions, this process is profoundly dishonest.  But as a sociological practice, the changes are a different thing altogether.  The object of religious worship is society itself, and the whole beast changes over time.  People pick from the grab-bag of ideas whatever bits make the world make sense to them, but the institutions and religions themselves have to insist on a direct line from the start, all connected to the earliest start of the faith.  Religions can't admit that they do this, because they need to claim authority and timelessness well out of proportion to their skill, when they are deep in the present.

In theory, the knot of religion and sexism can perhaps be untied.  Religion can no longer be used to justify slavery in the mainstream, even though the Southern Baptists are a separate denomination BECAUSE of this.  The knot will fall when society changes enough that sexism is abandoned, and cut out of religion as a result.  Believers refuse to acknowledge this process, with hilarious results.  Problem is, reactionary religious movements pull in the opposite direction.  Those reactions are an attempt by the people in power to keep it in the face of this threat.

The connection is, thus, in the opposite direction, and dumping religion will not, in and of itself, end sexism.  Communist Russia is a classic example, where women's fertility was regulated in every direction to serve the state and its male overlords.  Evo-psych is similar.  And in a few hundred years, Eve will be a Promethean figure of freedom and knowledge rather than the evil temptress.

The more mainline and progressive the mainline denominations get, the smaller they get.  Loss of real connection to the religious "truth," or loss of religious faith altogether in their educated crowds?  The networks that come with hardline faiths are the real draw for those groups.  Also, many of these places give women a measure of power in their specific society, or turn their oppression into a badge, as we saw earlier.

So, as religion becomes less important, the sexism will fall out.  But by the time it does, religion will be so irrelevant that no one will care.
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Women in Secularism: Day 2 - Women leaving religion

I am back and set up now. This time around I made sure to get a cord and I have brought down the wheelchair which makes it easier to write. #Shortgirlproblems.

I will be writing a recap of Day 1 as soon as I can to make up for the whole my computer and phone died thing. With luck, nothing will stand in my way today. I am in a funny situation in that I decided to wear a dress today. The combined pressure of bra, squeezing myself into a dress, and the undergarment I am wearing is having the hilarious effect of strangling me slightly with my own chest. No better motivation for sitting up straight exists.
Despite the earliness of the start, there seems to be a decent number of people here.

This first panel looks amazing: I recognize Maryam Namazie, Stephanie Svan, Vyckie Garrison, and there is also Theresa McBain and Jamila Bey.

Stephanie started off with a sex joke which is a perfect start to the morning. Vyckie Garrison does a great job introducing her blog for survivors of religious abuse: No Longer Quivering.
Jamila Bey points out that African American women are statistically are more likely to be religious, tithe more, etc. She points out that she does not exist statistically.
Her family seems to be an amazing examples of varied religions. In some houses she couldn't play cards, and in others she couldn't play jacks, because jacks were of the devil. She points out the amazing power and betrayal of finding out there is no Santa. The compulsion to make her believe in Santa was in order to force her to be good. The santa myth, and  by extension the religion myth is a method of control. She figured this out at the age of five.

Theresa reminds people that our life of truth/non-religiousness is a difficult one.

Maryam Namazie is hated by god (her mic kept giving feedback). Her name means prayer, which angers some Muslims. Her grandfather was a Mullah, although her family asks that he be called a Muslim scholar. Her family was relatively liberal and so she didn't have to veil and her father loves both his daughters. She first faced religion when she faced Islam as political power with the religious overtake of the Iranian government. The examples of the movement of religion into the schools with the shaming of girls who show legs, or are unveiled, including being spit on, and the separation of boys and girls.
There is a hadith that says there is no greater affliction in the world than being a woman. A tool of political shame is to suggest that someone is a woman by dressing them in veils, because there is nothing more shameful than being a woman. She wants to examine the statistics of who is leaving Islam.
Last time I saw Maryam speak, she had the room in tears. She is an incredibly powerful speaker.

Jamila explains the difficulty of leaving from very religious backgrounds in certain communities. She talks about her own disowning by her family, and the isolation that is frequently felt. Her husbands mother was a racist bigot anti-Semite and projected her stupid feelings onto her fun by having him baptised so that the Jewish side of his family would want nothing to do with him. The difficulty of separating herself from her religion risked the isolation from her own family and so she was afraid for her children's ability to know their family. Religion can be intrinsic to your ethnic identity, so that for her giving up her religion meant she wasn't black anymore. Coming out can be incredibly lonely. It can be hard to have great relatives who believe wretched things.

Vyckie already had a very narrow circle of friends before coming out, but was able to bring her best friend with her when she got out from the church. Religion had been a bonding experience between her and her mother. Her mother is unwilling to give up Jesus and so sometimes being together can be awkward. Her mother watches Fox news and so a lot of what she says is offensive.

With Theresa, the trend of the coming out creating difficulty with family and the micro-aggression of "I will pray for you".
It is a great reminder that one of the biggest difficulties we face as out atheists is the abandonment by friends and family. That's an order of magnitude worse for people whose identity is totally bound up in religion, who end up feeling alone, isolated, and depressed when that floor falls out from under them.  Theresa has managed to rebuild some of her familial ties, especially as her father died and the rest of the family recognized its value.  Her husband is a conservative believer with whom her atheism is a "dirty little secret" that they don't talk about, and it is a tremendous strain for them.  Her son was an atheist long before she realized he was, and is now part of the University of Central Florida's SSA group without yet being university student.  Her other sun is an apatheist.  Both sons faced abandonment from the rest of Theresa's family as "collateral damage."  One of her friends signed their last communication with "You led me back to a god that you didn't believe in, and I hate you for that."

Maryam notes that being an "authentic Muslim" often comes with having Islamist sympathies, since Islam is now the banner of a theocratic political movement with power in many places.  But, Islamism faces much resistance from within the Muslim world, so leaving Islam gets a variety of reactions.  There are MANY closed atheists in the Muslim community, who are often supportive of fellows who leave the faith.  But to feel unsafe in one's home, with one's parents...that is excruciating.  In this case, the demand to be "authentic" often comes from outside the community, from otherwise well-meaning people who assume that people from certain backgrounds are Muslim and that that comes with specific attributes.  This authenticity ends up making it hard to make people comprehend what leaving the religion even means, because of these cultural ties that one may not even HAVE any longer.  Multiculturalism pushes this problem to the fore, by encouraging these identities and the perception thereof.

Zvan asks what resources people found as newly minted non-believers.  Theresa opens with her departure being the least thought-out thing she's ever done, since it immediately cost her her family, friends, and job in one fell swoop.  The atheist community was her lifesaver, up to and including financially supporting her family.

Theresa loves how as an ex-pastor, she won atheist of the year. Because of the investment that the community put in her, now she can be a resource for others in the movement.

Jamila: Being able to bring her child and her husband, helped her learn quickly that there are a lot of people who are just like you. Going to a bar and having hot wings, really brings you together. She is expanding that to Tacos as well. Washington was a great place for secular socializing and was really kind to her child.

Vyckie is in a small town in Nebraska  a very conservative Christian town. She used to publish a pro-life pro-Christian family newspaper. They were very involved in the pro-life community. When she left her religion, she had been a known entity in her community and so it was difficult. It was her and her family as the only atheists in the town. No one else is out because they don't want to lose their jobs.

9:43 - Vyckie, when she started the blog, she wasn't expecting to have anyone reading it, especially since in the Quiverfull community she was known as "Poor Vyckie". When you can see patriarchy blown up and lived to it's eventual conclusion, it is easier to see the damage of the patriarchal influences in more moderate society.

Being the older daughter, is like being born into indentured servitude. It is hard being a mom, but at least they chose it. For the daughters, they have no choice and end up with 8 kids that they have to care for. They are housewives without the choice of taking on that role. The life is pre-packaged as being the "God's choice" for their life. No freedom.
Vyckie smartly loads NLQ with religious key words to let those searching find a different perspective.

[[ OMG late night is catching up with me. may need to take a nap at some point.]]

Maryam reminds us about the death list in Bangladesh and the arrests done recently. She is listing off and reminding people about the atheists struggling overseas with death threats, unjust laws, and more. It is unacceptable that these people are still in prison.

9:49 - Theresa - giving up religion means more than just giving up god and church. It can mean giving up others relationships and connections. For example, giving up your hairdresser.

Love the ambition of Jamila's kid. Power to him and best support.

Parents have a difficult role to play is trying to keep kids from fighting their battles, Maryam reminds.
Jamila says "You can't come into my home saying things you can't prove"

We have to do everything to give our kids an exceptional science education and the ability to make informed decisions.
"You can't prove it? Mommy wins"
"I inoculate my son from religion, I inoculate him from disease."

Are you glad you came out as Atheists?

Jamila: You cannot lie about yourself without consequences

Theresa: Being told  you have a mental illness for thinking like you do, or are having a mid-life crisis. If I am where's my car.

Women in Secularism [live blogging]

1:45 pm - The introduction by Ron Lindsay included the passage from Timothy regarding women remaining silent and not suffering a woman to teach, to highlight the connection between feminism and secularism.  His introduction include a retrospective of feminism and the idea that there are divisions within every movement.

1:57 pm - Ron Lindsay misses the point of the concept of "Shut up and Listen" and "privilege". He is calling it dogmatic and comparing it to the attempt by religions to silence dissenters. I want to do a longer post about this later, but the main point of shut up and listen is not to shut up someone completely, but rather telling them that in order to listen and understand, they first have to listen to the people experiencing that oppression. If you are too busy talking, you cannot listen. It is not about saying that others have nothing to contribute, but rather encouraging them to listen first, and listen without planning your response but actually hearing what is being said.

2:00 pm - surly Amy does an awesome demonstration of what homeopathy is by "poisoning" water. Great reparte between Rebecca Watson and her about poisoning Watson.

2:16 pm - faith healing is almost a catch all term. Reiki has a certification which shock Rebecca.

2:19 pm - a full catalogue of the pseudoscientific beliefs involved in religions would take several months. Some of the worst: creationism - actively trying to push it into the public schools.
Genital mutilation- a cultural practice supported by religion. Women being cut to be kept chaste, male circumcision encouraged by Judaism. Worse Rabbis are using their mouths to step the bleeding.
On going War on Women. - "women who are raped can't get pregnant"


Surly Amy: So is "the Secret" like the underpants gnomes? Step one steal underwear, step two ... , step three: profit.

2:40 pm - Jenny's crystal child and indigo child mom. Rebecca Watson talks about Jenny's pseudoscientific beliefs that were eventually replaced with an autism diagnosis and started her anti-wax campaign. Women's intuition plays a role in this whole process.
About.com editor writes about how she didn't feel that "Tigre mom" instinct. She felt scared and did her research instead and decided to trust her doctors. "When we empower through magical powers" we hurt the people who don't experience these magical powers. Empower through science instead.

2:46 pm - Sarah Moglia makes an amazing point about making skepticism human focused and figure out why people are turning to pseudoscience.

WiS2: Waiting

I am at the airport, checked in and waiting to go through security. I'm flying United into Dulles and then shuttling over to the hotel.

I am going on 5 hours sleep. Less probably since I don't know how long it took for me to fall asleep. The excitement (rise fever) is keeping me awake at the moment.

I finally went through security. I figured I could hang out at my gate till the flight. According to my boarding pass I am supposed to be flying out of gate 10. I get here and no such gate exists. Wtf?? Apparently United uses that as a place holder until the usual gate is free or something. Or at least that's the only excuse I can come up with as to why they would put a nonexistent gate on my pass xD.

Security was nice and easy, despite traveling with an Arabic bible. White privilege I guess. For the first time they didn't even make me go through the body scanner!

So far so good. Can't wait to make it to Washington and Women in Secularism. I especially cannot wait to meet awesome people like Ashley Miller, Stephanie Zvan, Miri, Kate Donovan, Sarah Moglia, and see some old friends again too.

So excited!!

Edit: apparently the plane has been delayed 20 minutes. I really wish this was Japan and the had those little rent a bed. Box things. I've been at this airport for 4 hours now and I could really use a nap.
Alex's flight was at 7:30. He's probably already in DC.

"Dialogue"

Imagine an abusive family. Imagine a family that at every opportunity does what they can to tear you down. To scream at you and tell you how everything that happens is your fault. Imagine that it gets to the point where you cut off contact with them, block them out of your life. You do this, because every time you speak it ends up with them screaming at you.  It gets to the point where you are afraid to answer the phone on the off chance that it’s them. You watch every word you say or write because you worry it will somehow get back to them and trigger another fight, even if what you are saying had nothing to do with them. They look for excuses to be angry. You have to yell to be heard, but when you raise your voice, you are attacked for being too angry, for not listening, for being too aggressive. You are told to shut up and stop yelling, all the while being yelled at.

 You cut them off, except cutting them off doesn’t give you any peace. They manage to get in touch with you through someone else. Someone they have convinced that they want to talk to resolve things. The person urges you to make up with them. After all family is family and it is not good to be divisive. You want to agree; you want to hope that this time finally you can have an honest discussion about everything that has gone wrong, on how their actions have made you feel. You want this to be over. You want your anxiety to end, and go back to talking about the things you both care about instead of being called names. But you also remember the last time they promised to work things out, when the dialogue ended up being nothing more than an excuse to yell at you some more. To tear you down just a little bit further. So you ask for a show of good faith; something small, but something to show that they are sincere. Or maybe something not that small, but something that has to be done for any resolution to take place. But they aren't willing to make that sacrifice. Because it is not about resolution, it is about further abuse. It is about getting the chance to yell at you and abuse you further, but in a new location; a location, where if you don’t show up, you are accused of being the unreasonable one. It is nothing more than an attempt to get at you again; to circumvent your attempts to cut them out of your life for the sake of your health, or peace.

Abusers know how to make themselves look like the good guy. They convince everyone else that you are ungrateful, a liar. They trot out edited or incomplete versions of stories to explain how you are a troublemaker and really, they are the ones that are wounded and they are just trying to make peace for everyone’s sake. When you show other people the examples of the harmful things they’ve done to you, they insist it is out of context. They explain how it was all a misunderstanding and all you need to do is talk about it to make it all better. And there is nothing you can do, because it is physically impossible to bear your wounded heart. It is impossible to show everyone the scars that exist in unseen places; the anxiety, the depression, the despair. Even if they catch a glimpse of it, it is not the full story. Unless they have gone through the same thing, they cannot understand the pain and the hurt that comes with that kind of abuse and so they accuse you. They accuse you of being stubborn, divisive. For fairness sake, they grant that some of what might have happened to you is unfair, but they take “the middle ground”. All this, not understanding that there is no middle ground, because they compare an amputation, a fatal wound, to a paper cut and call you both equally injured.

Now instead of a family, imagine that this is a community. Imagine it is a group where you found acceptance for believing something different then everyone else. Imagine that this community talked about the persecution they faced for this common belief. They welcomed you and told you that they understood your pain. You felt so thrilled about the acceptance that you opened up. You talked about the problems you had because of your faith and they accepted you. You talked about the problems you faced because of people who denied reason and evidence and they accepted you. And then you talked about the problems that you have because of your gender identity, or your race, or your income level, and they shunned you. They shunned you and accused you of making it up. They yelled at you for being divisive when you point out how people in this very community sometimes treated you differently or badly because of things beyond your control. You think, they must have misunderstood, you don’t want to blame someone, you just wanted to offer suggestions on how to make this better.  But it didn’t matter. By bringing it up, you opened the doors. They no longer saw you as one of them and so they derided you. The screamed at your and harassed you. They sent others who thought like them to harass you. They screamed at you, they spread rumours about you and insulted you. While they did this they told everyone about how you had created a division in the group. They mentioned how you were spreading untrue stories about your oppression. They called you professional victim. They covered their tracks like abusers do. They smiled their way into people’s trust.  Then when you cut them off, when you finally said enough, they talked about how you were destroying the movement.  They convinced people that you were looking for attention. And then you insinuated that you would be willing to make up, to “have a dialogue’, for ‘the good of the movement’.

But this isn’t about dialogue. This isn’t about the good of the movement, or healing the rift. It is a chance to further harass you. To further show you that they can push you around and out of the movement, and still have everyone stay “in the middle”. If you try to defend yourself, you are blamed for being uncooperative, while their continued attempts are shutting you up are ignored or painted as childish pranks. What used to be your source of support is instead a source of anxiety. Your life’s work is mocked and ignored. But you are forced to put up with the harassment in the interest of discussion. Any show of faith you ask for is blown out of proportion.

When you point out that despite the beautiful promises of discourse, the harassment still continues, you are accused of being unfair. The other parties all want to be “neutral”. You are asked to ignore all the spiteful, hateful, in some cases illegal things people do to you in the name of “healing and dialogue”.  Maybe you were too harsh in telling people about your oppression. Maybe you didn’t have it that bad really. Maybe you did want the attention didn’t you, and maybe you exaggerated how bad things were just a little bit; for effect? They don’t realize that their neutrality is nothing more than silent consent, silent legitimization of the abuse you suffer. It is saying your black eye must have been the result of walking into a door at the same time that they ignore you being pushed down the stairs.

Albert Einstein said it best: "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

Neutrality is not always the best choice. Not when neutrality means ignoring the suffering of others in favour of false unity. Not when neutrality is hurting those who have not found their voice yet and keeping them from speaking. 

Heroes and Words

Jen McCreight’s writing is what made me come out as an atheist. Before reading her, my only experiences with people who called themselves atheists were either apatheists or puffed up popinjays who like to put on airs about how intelligent they were. Jen showed me a different type of atheist, one who could talk about the harm of religious belief while at the same time acknowledging that believers themselves are not stupid. Her voice was one that resonated with me and made me realize that it was ok to be honest with myself and others. That I was an atheist and that that was ok.

Rebecca Watson put words to the feeling of discomfort that I had felt for years. She opened my eyes to the subtle undercurrents that even those of us struggling against them don’t always see - even when we do feel them. Her voice became another one that spoke for me, and another one that made me proud to be an atheist.

Ophelia Benson wrote eloquently about reason and skepticism. She introduced me to the plight of women and atheists in other countries. Her humour, eloquence, and passion became my voice in the world. I rejoiced that I had found a community that hosted such incredible people. I knew I had found my place in the world, and a group of people I could be proud to associate.

PZ Myer’s aggressiveness scared me at first, but soon I began to understand it. I admired that such a quiet man had such a loud voice. What made me admire him even more was when he used his loud voice as a megaphone for those who needed it. When their voices became strong enough, he stepped back and stood as a support instead. When he stood up for women, admitted his own potential blindness and listened instead, my admiration grew. His aggressiveness became mine.

There are many more. Ashley Miller, Stephanie Zvan, Miri, Heina, Elyse, Kate Donovan, Surly Amy, these are all awesome amazing people who actively work for good in the community. Who's voices deserve to be heard, who have great things to say and contribute.

These are the people who encouraged me to join the atheist movement. Their voices are my voice; their passion is what makes me devote my time and money to this cause. Feminism, Social Justice, intersectional activism, is not “poisoning atheism”. Seeing people who care about me, about the well-being of others, who are actively trying to make a place for me and others, made me feel welcome, it gave me the strength to add my own voice into the mix.

But when I see people using every despicable tactic they can find to silence those voices, when I see people actively harassing them, and so on, that is what poisons the community for me. Because those voices they silence are my voices. Those are my fears, worries, and thoughts. It is the harassers and abusers that make me feel unwelcome in the community. As I talk to those around me, it is the harassers, the abusers, the so called MRAs that keep people away from atheism. They don’t want to join a community that has so little regard for basic decency.

A poison is something that harms, something that rots and festers. Those who strive to make a place for everyone is not poison. Those who care about safety, about having everyone’s voice heard, are not a rot. Those who try to silence voices, those who spread hate, those who do everything they can to make people uncomfortable, to scare them away, and then accuse them of divisiveness. Does it need a doctor to diagnose the infection?